9 Major Features to Consider For Email Marketing CRM Software
Planning to invest in a CRM? Great! A study reported that businesses earned $8.71 in 2014 for every dollar invested in CRM. Just imagine the potential ROI in 2024! In this guide, we've listed the 9 most important email marketing features you must look for when choosing a CRM.
So, let’s get started!
Overview: Email Marketing CRM Tools
Email Marketing CRM tools are all-in-one solutions that enable businesses to manage their marketing, sales, and customer service in one central platform. These CRM tools are a must-have for your business if you want to run email campaigns in the simplest, efficient, and effective way. First things first, a CRM tool that includes email marketing features, eliminates the need to switch between different platforms. You can manage email marketing within the same CRM used for sales and help desk. Next, for effective email campaigns, segmentation and personalization are crucial. And to implement these tactics, you need detailed data on your target audience, right? Using an Email Marketing CRM tool helps you easily store all the data in one place and use it whenever needed. Moreover, your marketing team gets updates from the sales team on the stages of every lead, prospect, and customer in the sales funnel. Based on this data, they can plan, write, automate sending targeted emails, and guide the audience strategically to the final conversion stage.
Notably, analyzing centralized campaign data enables sales teams to make informed sales decisions. And sales pipeline data allows marketers to identify campaigns with better ROI and those that require optimization.
This way, an Email Marketing CRM tool:
Streamlines workflows
Saves thousands of hours
Simplifies campaign management
Enhances marketing and sales team collaboration
Increases conversion rate through data-driven email campaigns
Boosts sales and revenue
Ultimately, drives business growth
9 Email Marketing Crucial Features to Look For In a CRM Tool
1. Email Templates and Editor
Check if the CRM software offers professionally designed, responsive email templates. An email template is a sample email with customizable components. And the responsiveness of the templates ensures that your emails look good and function properly on all devices.
If you use an email template, you only need to customize it with your brand elements and add your email copy. You don't have to start from scratch every time you want to reach out to a customer. So, having access to a library email of templates will save you valuable time and effort.
Furthermore, a drag-and-drop email editor makes it easy to customize these templates to match your specific needs. You can create stunning emails in just a few clicks by dragging and dropping sections and blocks of text, images, CTA buttons, etc.
Doplac CRM offers over 500 ready-to-launch email templates divided into different categories and a user-friendly drag-and-drop editor. You can choose from pre-made templates, or you can easily design templates in your own way.
2. Email address verifier
Make sure the CRM you choose features an Email Verifier. Because all the email addresses on your list might not be as valid or active as you think. Some of them could be inactive or nonexistent.
If you send emails to these types of addresses, they bounce back, wasting your money and time. Moreover, it can negatively impact your sender score and email deliverability.
Email verifier helps you ensure that the email addresses on your list are valid and deliverable. It identifies invalid and inactive email addresses from your list. Then, it removes them and keeps your list clean.
And having an Accurate and Quality Email list leads to higher deliverability, open rates, click-through rates, and overall better performance. With Doplac CRM's free email address verifier, you can easily Verify Email Addresses in bulk. This verifier enables you to ensure accuracy through a multi-step verification process at no cost.
3. Segmentation and Personalization
People are more likely to open, read, engage with emails, and take actions that are relevant to them. Email segmentation and personalization help you ensure relevancy and enhance email marketing performance. Experian’s study found that personalized emails generate six times higher transaction rates. According to MailChimp's data, segmented email campaigns get 14.31% higher opens and 100.95% more clicks than non-segmented ones. So, don't choose a CRM without these two Essential features — segmentation and personalization.
The segmentation feature allows you to divide your email list into specific groups based on criteria such as:
These helps you create targeted emails and send the right emails to the right people.
Source: Really Good Emails
McKinsey reports that 71% of people expect personalized content from companies, and 76% feel frustrated when it's not delivered.Personalization is about making your emails feel more personal rather than sending one-size-fits-all emails. This feature enables you to customize emails based on specific data about the recipient. For example, using their name, tailoring content to their preferences, and suggesting products based on what they've bought before.
4. Email Sequence Creation and Automation
An email sequence is a series of emails that sent out automatically based on predefined triggers or conditions. This automation helps you to:
Onboard new subscribers effortlessly
Nurture leads effectively
Increase customer retention
Deliver targeted campaigns at the perfect time
Minimize manual effort
Automate repetitive tasks
Save hundreds of hours for critical responsibilities
The best part? Email automation is a proven profit booster for your business.According to a study by Epsilon, automated emails drive 320% higher revenue compared to non-automated emails.So, when choosing a CRM, you must check whether it offers email sequence creation and automation features.Some common email automation triggers include:
Welcome Email Trigger — Sent automatically when a new subscriber joins your email list.
Lead Magnet Trigger — Sent when someone downloads a lead magnet.
Purchase Confirmation Trigger — Sent after a customer completes a purchase.
Post-Purchase Follow-Up Trigger — Sent to gather feedback or provide additional information after a customer makes a purchase.
Cross-Sell Trigger — Sent to suggest related products based on a customer's previous purchases.
Abandoned Cart Trigger — Triggered when a user adds items to their shopping cart but doesn't complete the purchase.
Event Trigger — Sent to promote and provide details about an upcoming event or webinar.
Re-Engagement Trigger — Sent to inactive subscribers to encourage re-engagement.
Another part of the email automation feature is the use of dynamic content. What’s this?Well. We've discussed personalization earlier, right? This personalization process can be automated using dynamic content functions. It involves automatically changing email elements such as names or product recommendations based on the recipient's individual data.
Dynamic content goes beyond manual personalization by dynamically adjusting the email's content in real-time. It not only saves you time but also creates a more personalized and engaging experience for each recipient.
5. Scheduling and Send Time Optimization
Image Source: Rialtomarketing
Email scheduling is a feature that allows you to set a specific date and time for your emails to be sent, instead of sending them immediately. Send Time Optimization (STO) involves scheduling emails to be sent at the optimal time for each recipient, rather than sending them all at once to everyone. This feature helps you ensure that emails are delivered when a recipient is most active and likely to engage.For increased open rates and engagement, remember to consider these two features when selecting a CRM.
6. A/B Testing
Another essential email marketing feature you must check for in CRM is email A/B testing. A study found that A/B testing CTA buttons in emails can increase click-through rates by up to 127%.A/B testing involves sending two versions of an email to different groups of recipients and comparing which version performs better. It helps you to identify the factors that increase open rates, engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.Some common variables tested in email A/B testing include:
Subject Line
Preview Text
Sender Name
Email Copy
Call-to-Action (CTA)
Email Layout and Design
Email Length
Send Time and Day
The A/B testing feature provided by the email marketing CRM helps you conduct A/B testing easily, efficiently, and effectively. It offers you a user-friendly interface for creating different versions of your email. Once you've created your email variations, the tool automatically splits your email list into segments and sends it to each segment. It then shows metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and other relevant metrics. By analyzing these results, you can identify which elements of your email resonate with your audience and which ones need improvement.
7. Analytics & Reporting
How do you know if your emails are performing well and whether your investment is worth it? The answer is simple: track, measure, and analyze.So, analytics and reports are another must-have feature you need to look for when choosing a CRM. These features help you monitor campaigns, measure performance, analyze detailed data, and optimize strategies.Here are some common email marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Deliverability rate
Open Rate
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Conversion Rate
Return on Investment (ROI)
Mobile Open Rate
List Growth Rate
Bounce Rate
Unsubscribe Rate
Spam Complaint Rate
Identifying what works and what doesn't helps you to make informed decisions, improve your strategy, and achieve better results.
8. Scalability
Every business, no matter its size, wants to grow. Don't you want that too? That's why choosing a CRM with the ability to scale is essential.
As your business grows, so will your email list, the number of emails you send, and the overall interaction with your audience. A scalable email marketing CRM tool can effectively manage an increasing amount of subscribers, emails, and data. Also, it can handle a significant number of email sends per day without performance issues. So, don't forget to consider whether it offers scalable pricing plans and advanced functionality when choosing a CRM email marketing tool.
9. Integration with Other Platforms
The integration feature refers to the ability of a tool to connect, work, and exchange data seamlessly with other tools, software, or platforms. Integration eliminates the need to manually transfer data between platforms. This saves a lot of time, simplifies workflows, and ensures efficiency. So, must check if the CRM platform integrates with other marketing, sales, or any business tools and platforms you use. For example, you run an e-commerce store selling apparel and accessories. You use Shopify as your e-commerce platform and Doplac CRM for email marketing. Now, if you integrate Doplac with Shopify, all your customer data from Shopify automatically syncs with Doplac CRM. Using this data, you can set up automated emails to be sent to your customers.
Ending Remark
Hopefully, this guide helps you understand which features to consider when choosing an Email Marketing CRM tool. Here is your checklist:
Email templates and editor
Email address verifier
Segmentation
Personalization
Automation
Scheduling
A/B testing
Analytics and reports
Scalability
Seamless integration
